A History of Simple FaintsWayne Cresser

The first responder is Happy De Niro, my
dog, who after sniffing my face, licks it several times, lowers himself down
beside me and waits. His leash is still attached to his collar. His front paws
touch the edge of the sidewalk. He lies
there panting in the warm afternoon sun, the black dot on the side of his brown
face a bas relief, his tongue as pink as bubble gum. He smiles and there you
see it, the vulpine grin of young Robert De Niro, around the time of Mean Streets and Bang the Drum Slowly. Don’t ask me how it works.
I had stooped low to pick up an empty
Wendy’s soda cup, which I planned to deposit in a Hefty Bag. I carry them on
our walks occasionally because the street corner near the community garden is
littered by motorists who must come to a full stop there. Stopping gives the
travelers enough time to consider whether they want to clutter the private
cockpits of their machines or take a dig at Mother Nature. They have it in for
Mother Nature apparently, so I sometimes have to clean things up.
From the stooping, I felt suddenly
clammy and dizzy. From the dizziness, I collapsed into a clump of honeysuckle.
The street runs east to west, but my splayed self faces south now, with just a
view to Noel’s house across the street. I don’t hear Noel’s son beating his
drum kit, and no one’s stirring about the yard. I’m out of luck there.
I start to think of times in my life
when fainting would not have been a bad thing, how passing out would have been
distraction enough to avoid further embarrassment. That sounds more foolish
than ironic, I know, but I have suffered enough humiliation to believe that
things might have been better in the short term if I could have induced the
occasional medical emergency. Suffice to say that when I began not to feel that
way anymore, this business started.
A
dog barks to my right. Happy D springs to his feet and returns the barking. He
may recognize the dog. But I can’t turn my head to see.
I cannot raise myself out of this nest
of honeysuckle either. I might have been unconscious at first. I don’t know.
I’m conscious now. Maybe the person walking the dog is someone I know.
I wish I could speak, yell. I’d like to say, “I just wanted to help. I
just wanted to do my part,” but everything about my mouth is locked down.
The barking is closer now. I hear a
young woman’s voice. Out of the corner of my eye I watch them approach from the
west, the woman and her dog. I don’t recognize either one of them.
She speaks to the dog, “Shhh, Polly.”
And Polly simmers down. She steps in front of me while Happy D. sniffs the
smaller Polly’s behind. I want to tell him to quit it. They’re wagging their
tails.
“Mister,” she says, “what’s going on?”
I squint in the too bright light. I’m feeling
very thirsty. My mouth may be hanging open
too.
I do not know.
“What’s
going on?” she says. Are you hurt?”
No, it was a gentle landing, I want tell
her---No aches, no pain---but I cannot speak. I cannot say, “Look, I’m just a
middle-aged man out for stroll with his dog, and I have collapsed into a
honeysuckle bush. That’s the whole bit, nothing else going on here.”
Somebody else steps up, his dog racing
ahead of him. I recognize him. He’s a Labradoodle named Barry. Happy D. loves
Barry more than steak on a silver platter.
“Don’t tug, boy,” a man admonishes, and
I’m glad to hear his voice. It’s Jerry Sullivan, the local councilman. We’re
practically neighbors.
“What have we here?” he says. Jerry is a
wide man and when he bends over me, I am grateful for the shade.
“Norman,” he says, “What on earth?”
“You know him?” asks the young woman.
“Sure I know him. He’s Norman White. He
lives just a few houses…”
I may be smiling now because Jerry
pauses, then continues. “Norman? Norm!”
Barry sniffs the smaller Polly’s butt
and wags his stubby tail. Happy D. whines and burrows his nose into Barry’s
neck.
“Will you look at them?” Jerry says to
the young woman. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Polly. Yours?”
“Barry.”
“He’s cute.”
The dogs are a revolving cluster of fur and
spittle spray now. I can’t watch them.
“Say,” says Jerry pointing to them, “where
do you think they get the energy?”
“It’s a hot one, all right,” she says.
“Hello, still here,” I’m thinking.
“Maybe it’s heat exhaustion,” she says,
finally looking back to me. “I wonder if we should move him into the garden.”
“He’s as pale as Hamlet’s ghost,” says
Jerry. “But I don’ think we should even try to move him. If he injured anything
falling, we could make it worse.”
Jerry leans in again, “Norm, what’s
going on?” he says.
“I don’t think he can speak,” the young
woman whispers, as if she’s breaking devastating news to my next of kin.
Happy D. is next to me again. He licks
my knees, thanking me for Barry and Polly.
“Look,” she says. “He’s loving him.
That’s sweet.”
Two teenage boys pedaling a tandem bicycle
roll up to the stop sign. The boy on the back carries a boom box in a harness
type of situation. From it blasts nothing but bass, a sonic version of an
elephant stampede. The boy in front signals to him that they are stopping. He
gets off and walks back to the other one. He steps behind him and shuts the
music off.
Jerry introduces himself to the boys and
the young woman as Councilman Sullivan. The young woman tells everyone her name
is Julia. The wandering squires are Sean and Justin. The dogs run by, chasing
each other, their leashes unreeling like broken tape measures, the leash
handles bouncing along the sidewalk.
“Cool dogs,” says Justin of the boom box.
When Jerry asks if anybody knows First
Aid, Justin volunteers his friend. “Sean was a Boy Scout,” he says.
Jerry smiles. “That’s good.”
“So
what’s wrong with the guy?” says Sean, pointing a finger at me.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with the guy,”
Justin repeats. “Has he been drinkin’ or something?”
“What?” says Jerry. “No, not at all.”
He shakes his head and clears his
throat: “Please,” he says to Sean, “Maybe you can tell us something from your
training?”
“Oh, no boss,” he says. “I don’t
remember any of that shit.”
Justin laughs.
Frustrated now, Jerry asks if anybody
has a cell phone.
They all pipe up.
Oh God, I think, I know what’s coming
now. Don’t do it, Jerry. Please, don’t. Look, I want to tell them all, somebody
just prop me up and give me some water. I’ll be fine in a few minutes. I may
not be able to stand on my own right away, but I will be able to speak. I will
ask somebody to put Happy D. in the shade of the garden while I get my
bearings. Nobody needs to stay with me. I’ll be fine. This happens to me. I
don’t know; my blood pressure sinks out of sight. I have a history of simple
faints. It’s damned inconvenient, but for you it should be no big deal.
Jerry’s not getting anywhere with the
phone. That’s good__ Let it alone, Jerry. Please. Do not do the
thing you feel you must, the thing that any decent person would do under
similar circumstances. The attention it brings will cause me tremendous stress,
which in my experience, only prolongs the effects of the fainting.
Justin helps Jerry find the dial pad on
his phone.
Julia has placed a cool, wet cloth on my
forehead.
That’s right, I remember, Eureka! There’s
running water in the community garden. Now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe Sean,
the errant Scout, will remember his basic training. Hydration is more basic
than First Aid, right? It’s essential for life! How hard is that, young man? If
this were happening in any movie made before the fifties, I’d have that glass
of water already. Water was the antidote for any emergency, any shock. Why I’d
be swimming in the stuff by now.
Jerry’s punching in the numbers: 9-1-and
1. Damn his responsible hide! Still, it’s no time to panic. Even if they’re
prompt, I figure I have ten to fifteen minutes before the EMTs arrive to poke,
prod and ask me endless questions to which I cannot reply. Then they will put
me on an ambulance cot and eventually hook me up to blinking and beeping
machines that will track my vitals all the screaming way to the hospital.
Please Jerry, Julia, Sean and Justin,
for the love of God, just bring me a glass of water!
The young men begin to drift back to
their bicycle. “You’re all set here, chief?” Sean asks Jerry.
Jerry nods.
Julia looks around and considers the
wrestling dogs, “They’re going to get awful thirsty if they keep that up.”
Jerry waves goodbye to his young
constituents as they pedal away, their music notched up to a respectful roar
while Julia continues, “I’ll go see if I can find a water dish in the garden.”
“Good idea,” says the councilman.” I
think I’ve seen some in there. Look near the hoses. I’ll just stay out here
with Norman until the rescue comes.”
“Be right back,” says Julia and she
leaves with Polly, Barry and Happy D. trailing her, even he joining the
procession into the shade of the garden.
Oh my friend, I say to myself.
Jerry bends over me now. “Don’t worry,
Norm,” he says. “We’ll get you straightened out soon enough.”
I know I’m lost when I hear them in the
distance, the sirens.
Soon the spectacle will begin.

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